Hook Activity for EDT 313: Kiser Pre-K

Individuals completing this lesson plan: Rachel Schuler and Kara Jankowski
Lesson title: Falling Object Partner Race
Date that lesson was taught: 3/12/15
Standards in 2 Domains:
Approaches to Learning: Carry out tasks, activities, projects or experiences from beginning to end.
Cognition and General Knowledge (Science): Engage in simple investigations.
Instructional objectives: list 2observable/measurable objectives for this lesson. Use precise language w/ action verbs.
The student will be able to:
1. Drop an object from eye-level at the same time as their partner and watch the outcome.
2. Articulate their observations from the trials of dropping objects with their partner.
Experiences: Describe authentic (real life, hands-on not representational) materials and enticing/ creative experiences in
which children are actively engaged. Safety should be addressed if warranted.

We will come to class with an assortment of various balls (tennis balls, ping pong balls, bouncy
balls, whiffle balls, etc) and light-weight objects such as feathers and tissues.
We will assign each child a partner.
Each student will have a ball. Their partners ball will be a different size or material.
Teachers will make sure the students are standing very close to their partner and that they know to
watch their partners ball as well as their own to understand the concept that they will land at the
same time. If enough teachers/volunteers, we will have one monitor each partner group.
A teacher or volunteer will say Ready-Set-Go and the students will simultaneously drop the balls
from eye level.
We will ask for the results (what the students observed).
We will then talk with the students about how all objects land at the same time except
tissues/feathers/paper etc.
Then we will do the partner drop again, this time with one partner dropping one of the lighter
objects mentioned above.
We will introduce the vocabulary word gravity and briefly talk about how objects always fall
downwards because of this principle.

Evidence of student learning:

We will have a check sheet with the students names listed on which we will document which
students properly followed instructions and completed the activity from beginning to end. We will
also mark down if the student watched their partners ball drop or solely focused on their own.
We will ask the partner groups for the results of the drop and mark down if they answer that their
objects landed at the same time. If they did not observe this or did not drop their objects at the same
time, we will help them do the drop again and direct their focus to both objects instead of solely
their own and will watch their timing.